


Social Capital

by smilebackwards



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, F/M, Sharing Clothes, Tabloids, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It isn’t mine,” Emily says when Nolan comes home to find her in his bedroom, covered in blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Social Capital

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunch/gifts).



“It isn’t mine,” Emily says when Nolan comes home to find her in his bedroom, covered in blood.

Nolan’s heart restarts in his chest. “Jesus, Ems. What happened?”

Emily pulls her stained shirt up over her head and Nolan feels his heart stutter again. “I won,” Emily says, smiling sharply. “Don’t worry. No one’s dead.” 

It’s no surprise to Nolan that Barry Ellis, who was laundering drug money through an adoption charity, discovered he’d more than met his match today. Now that Victoria’s in prison and the Grayson name has been decimated, Jack feeds Emily her pick of criminals that slipped through the justice system and she takes them down with elegance, grace and two swipes of a red Sharpie. 

Emily opens Nolan’s closet and starts rifling through his dress shirts. Settling on a green button up with electric blue piping, she does something complicated with the tails to make it fitted around her tiny waist. The collar gapes wide, revealing the sharp outline of her collarbones. 

Nolan swallows. He wore the shirt to Lila Martin’s cocktail party last weekend and was labeled garish. If Emily’s seen wearing it, it’ll be the height of Hamptons fashion in hours.

“Thanks for the loan,” Emily says, swaying toward him. Nolan thinks, for a moment, that she might kiss him, but she reaches deftly behind him to grab the keys to his newest baby off the dresser.

“Ems,” Nolan whines, but no power in the ‘verse can stop her and besides, Nolan would give anything to hear the chime of her laugh. “Pull the seat forward! Wear your seatbelt!” he shouts after her.

-

The _Hampton Herald_ is an unapologetic rag, full of all the latest dirt on high society. Nolan reads it religiously, waiting for the days Emily’s beautiful takedowns will inevitably end up in the headlines.

It's something of a shock to see Emily herself on the front page. Nolan spits out his coffee.

_Hamptons’ Newest Power Couple?_

Nolan stares at the high-res photographs below the headline: a side by side comparison of Nolan at Lila Martin’s party and Emily in his shirt, driving his Tesla. _Borrowing a few things, Mrs. Ross?_ the caption reads coyly.

If possible, it gets worse when Nolan flips to the next page to find dozens of photos of himself and Emily with arms linked, dating back years.There are enough photos for a full two page spread and Nolan is looking at Emily adoringly in almost every one. It's pretty damning.

Nolan is staring despondently at the enlargement of Emily's empty ring finger captioned _What is he waiting for??_ when there's a knock on the door.

“Nolan,” David says slowly, a crumpled copy of the _Herald_ in his hand, “are you dating my daughter?”

“Ha,” Nolan says, weakly.

-

“Oh my God, am I?” Nolan asks Emily before dinner that night. She’s wearing another of his shirts for no reason he can determine and the candlelight glints in her hair and off the diamond earrings Nolan bought her yesterday, just because.

Emily rolls her eyes, pushes him back against the kitchen island and kisses him.

 

_1 year later_

“Who gives this woman to be married?”

“I do,” David says, letting go of Emily’s hand so she can reach for Nolan’s. Nolan still expects David to show him all the ways he learned to shiv someone in prison, but today he looks genuinely happy, as undamaged and even-keeled as Nolan’s seen him since he resurrected himself from the dead. He smiles at Nolan. “I knew you would be a good investment.”

Emily gives them both a sardonic look. “I guess it’s a good thing I have such a competent financial advisor.”

“I guess we were both lucky, Ems,” Nolan says, folding her fingers into his. He can feel the 10 carat diamond of the engagement ring the _Herald_ gushed over pressed against his palm. “You look gorgeous.”

Nolan hasn’t wanted to jinx it, but now, with Emily in front of him in white Alexander McQueen, he can see their future opening up in front of him like the DoD databases after five minutes of lackluster hacking.

They could go anywhere for their honeymoon of course but he thinks he’ll take Emily back to Italy. They visited Venice two summers ago, tracking the offshore accounts of a corrupt oil magnate with ties to the Initiative. Emily had bought Nolan gelato so he had bought her a gondola. She’d responded by buying him a glass-blowing factory and then Nolan had tried to buy her the ceiling of one of the alcoves in St. Mark’s except it turned out that the Italians were weirdly territorial about art and they’d had to run from the Carabinieri. They passed three signs for the Realto Bridge pointing in three different directions and almost fell into the canal and Nolan never saw Emily laugh so hard and bright.

Emily moves Nolan’s careful hands to the vulnerable small of her back, the place she’s always waiting for everyone else to stab her. "Hey, Nolan," she says, smiling, as she wraps her arms around his neck, "what happened to that girl who gave up on revenge?"

Nolan leans down to kiss Emily’s cheek and whisper into the shell of her ear, “She lived happily ever after.” He intends to make sure.


End file.
